 Purchases of fabrics through Italian merchants like the two cousins Giovanni Arnolfini amounted to a noticeable proportion of all government expenditure.Especially in Florence, where sumptuary laws prevented the citizens, from wearing the most luxurious cloths on which the city's fortunes were built, the materials of men's clothing in particular often appear plain in paintings, but contemporaries who understood the difference in grades of cloth very well would have appreciated the beauty and great expense of a very fine grade.Wool was the most popular fabric for all classes by far, followed by linen and hemp.